Monday, August 17, 2015

Death as Metaphor 19: Personal Poetry Reflection and Analysis

Death has been rampant throughout history, and
individuals react to it in various ways that help the poem evolve into
meaningful reminders of it.

I have a collection of poems that make use of
death metaphorically to express different feelings, events, and thoughts. The
poems do not follow any particular structure. Some are not pertinent to my own
life but the lives of others or things around me, including dreams. Each poem
delves into the concept that death is not just a literal meaning in which
everything ends; death is usually thought of as somber and peaceful.

I have discovered that death is a symbol for
something much greater because it constitutes the end of something important.
It could be a friendship, a love, a feeling, a change of one’s identity such as
a rebirth, and much more. Death is an important metaphor for authors to explore
the deepest emotions possible in a way that touches the reader on different
levels through imagery.

Here is an example of how death is used as a
metaphor by Adrienne Rich, which differs from my poetry, but that hints on the
rebirth process:

In 1971, Rich commented in a poetics essay,
“When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision,” (http://www.nbu.bg/webs/amb/american/5/rich/writing.htm) that women should share their imagination and experience through
writing by looking back at things and their lives with new eyes. She considers
women ‘dead’ in a male-dominated society until the woman ‘awakens’ from her
victimization and expresses her anger through writing and we are able to use
poems as windows to our world.

About Me

Maria A. Arana is a poet and writer in the making.
This blog provides the opportunity to share information of interest. There will fluidly be myriad topics posted. The goal is to have a new post every week. There may be more or none.
Thoughts rain down on us into words. Sometimes, we are not actually sure whether the voices will come down as drizzle, hale, or storm, but they are there, waiting to shower us into their mist.

Wings, Part 3 Though, he had not disclosed his thoughts to his parents the days after his conversation with Jenny, James continued pr...

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